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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034283">if i'm a bad person</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer'>CloudDreamer</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blaseball (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(He doesn't show up in this but he sucks), Blaseball is a horror game, Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Comes Back Wrong, Day X, Dissociation, Grief/Mourning, Hades Tigers (Blaseball Team), Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Incineration, Jessica Telephone Typical Unreality, Mean Lesbians, Mike Townsend is a cool guy actually, Morally Grey Jaylen Hotdogfingers, Morally Grey Jessica Telephone, Mortality, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Ruby Tuesday, She/They Jaylen Hotdogfingers, She/They Jessica Telephone, Suicide, Swearing, The order of deaths here is wrong I know don't tell me in the comments, Tillman Henderson Is An Asshole, hopelessness, painful healing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 23:46:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,595</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28034283</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It gets easier, watching your team die. </p><p>It shouldn't.</p><p>or, three times Jessica Telephone and Jaylen Hotdogfingers didn't forgive each other and one time they did.</p><p>(all titles are paramore lyrics)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jaylen Hotdogfingers &amp; Jessica Telephone, Jaylen Hotdogfingers &amp; Mike Townsend, Jessica Telephone &amp; The Hades Tigers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. i got a lot to say to you</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For all of the games they’ve played since they’ve got back, Jaylen’s moved with less emotion than most of the actual robots Jessica has seen. Their face doesn’t move an inch as they throw the bell, again and again, aiming for their heads, their chests, every visible part of the body. The first time it happened, Jessica was sure it was a mistake. She was watching on her phone, getting the highlights of the other games. Jaylen was just going through the motions; their pitches didn’t have have the same wild energy they used to. They didn't have the joy.</p><p>That’s to say, until the thirty second game of that season. Jaylen is in the audience, for some reason, sitting between two hooded figures, with their knees to their chest. Their hair is a mess, and it looks like they haven’t been sleeping. Still. They seem more alive than they have in weeks, and it’s because of their clear pain. They bite down on their lip, hard, layers of gold dust fading off. Jessica doesn’t see them until Yazmin pointed them out, tilting her horns in the direction.</p><p>“What’s that about? Doesn’t she have her own game to play?” Jessica asks, and Yazmin makes a noncommittal shrug. The universal Blaseball gesture for, “it’s probably some god‘s idea of a laugh.” Messing with time or messing with their heads. As if on cue, Mclaughlin flickers. Their face blurs, all the different shades of brown becoming one. Jessica’s not sure they notice. She bites her lip. She doesn’t know what’s coming, but something feels wrong. More wrong, she means, because this whole splort leaves her unsettled, even when on days when they don't lose a single player, to the Hall or to another team. </p><p>She’s not surprised when, as everyone takes their places on the field and in the line up, the light fades away slowly. The darkness of the eclipse casting the field in shadow. Jessica turns, watching as the torches light up with crimson flame so the spectators can, well. Spectate. Jaylen doesn’t need it, Jessica is pretty sure, from the way their dark eyes are locked on McLaughlin’s every move. She might be imagining it, but she thinks they’re mouthing, <i>the jacket, McLaughlin. Why didn’t you take the jacket?</i></p><p>They’re cut off anyway. One of the shadowy forms jerks it’s elbow into their side, and Jessica swears she sees their chest and way-too-big black hoodie melt into ink. They don’t move their lips after that, not even as the game begins. No cheering. Unlike the rest of the crowd around them, who’re eager to see blood and cheer on the Umps when they get close, they just flinch. Until it starts. </p><p>Not that they really figure it out right away. They’re too caught up in trying to survive the game to realize Mclaughlin‘s death is anything out of the ordinary. Jessica’s seen teammates die before, people she’s been close to. People she’s loved with the same fierceness she applies to everything. It never gets easier, is what she wants to say to every rookie who’s sobbing because the scorpion obsessed guy who taught them how to stand right went up in flames. She wants to say it, because if it was true, it’d mean Mclaughlin being here meant something. That they weren’t just another cog in the damned machine that is the blaseball gods’ plans. </p><p>She can’t. </p><p>Her blood runs cold instead, and all she can see is the game. She’ll win this for them, she vows again, like that means anything at all. Jessica doesn’t notice Antonio’s skeletal expression melting in the air, the waves of heat radiating off of him, or how Jaylen sucks in something that looks like smoke. She doesn’t notice them checking their pulse, and their hand coming away from their neck shakily. <i>”Something there,”</i> they whisper to themself, a small laugh escaping their lips. </p><p>She just keeps playing. Even Moody’s death doesn’t set her alarm bells off. She’s too used to the rhythm of violence, of watching people she knows and people she doesn’t burning to ash before her, doesn’t think anything of the shitty luck— two incinerations in one game? Unlucky, majorly unlucky, but not unprecedented. Elijah’s feels wrong, deeply wrong, and Jessica swallows down the violent impulse to throw up that floods her. She still doesn’t look at Jaylen, whose hands are shaking violently and whose smile almost passes for sincere in the flickering flame light.</p><p>Tears sting Yazmin’s eyes, and the light glints off them wrong. There’s always a brief pause in the playing, sometimes longer depending on how badly the rookie’s panicking. They always get the letter the morning of the game, like the god that sends those death sentences out knows who’ll be incinerated ahead of time. Not that rookies are allowed to do anything with the information. Jessica was one of the first players, so she didn’t have to live with the guilt of replacing someone loved. She didn’t have to know a death was coming. </p><p>“It’s going to be just fine,” Jessica says, patting Yazmin on the back. For a moment, she’s convinced her hand’s gone right through her. But no. That couldn’t be possible.</p><p>“Yeah,” Yazmin replies, voice hollow. She looks distractedly in Jaylen’s direction, and this is when Jessica makes the connection. She feels like an idiot for not seeing it earlier. “You’ll be fine. You’ve got this.”</p><p>“You mean, we’ve got this,” Jessica says, with steel. Yazmin nods without much conviction. Jessica recognizes the look of someone resigned to their fate, and she punches Yazmin lightly on the shoulder. Yazmin startles.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“We’ve got this.” </p><p>“Jessica...” Yazmin trails off, her horns reflecting the faint light of the flame at an angle all wrong. She refocuses, paying attention to the curves of Jessica’s body, her heavyset jaw, her lean muscles, the telephone cord that’s half tattoo’d, half standing out of the skin around her neck wrapping down beneath her shirt. Not Jaylen’s eyes, not the way their irises had lit up that unnatural blue and the whites of their arts turned black as the players had burned. </p><p>“Don’t Jessica me. Just tell me that we’re making it through to the other side. Together.”</p><p>“Together,” Yazmin says, with as much confidence as she can muster. Which isn’t much. She looks back. “Look, I— I have to say something. Before—“</p><p>“Say it to me after the game,” Jessica insists, and Yazmin swallows. “Tonight, okay?” </p><p>Jessica doesn’t know if she really believes Yazmin will be okay as they take the field again. All she feels is the rush of adrenaline as she crosses the field, again and again. She doesn’t think of winning for any of the dead players. She doesn’t think at all. She hears the distant sound of a dial tone as she swings the bat again and again. The crowd cheers her name, and her throat burns as she runs like she’s running from some sort of demon. When Yazmin makes one last scream, bloody and guttural, she only runs harder. She doesn’t cry out. She doesn’t make a single sound, other than the panting of her own breath.</p><p>Kiki tells her to take it easy, says she’s going to burn herself out, and Jessica just stares at her. Then she’s gone too, ashes breaking away in the cold wind, and Jessica doesn’t want to stop, doesn’t want to slow down. She doesn’t. She doesn’t. Jessica only notices Mooney’s gone after the last game is done. </p><p>Jessica comes to a stand still. She feels like she has blood on her hands as the eclipse passes, blood she can't wash away in the endless shower she knows she'll be taking. It's a ritual. Wash away the ashes of her friends, wash away the dirt and sweat, and move on. The light fades from behind the Umpires’ helmets, and they go still on the field. When everyone turns their backs on the bastards, they’ll disappear. All attempts to keep watching them past the end of the day have failed. Recordings get corrupted and in-person witnesses left behind are blinded in bright flashes of light. It’s one of those Blaseball mysteries Mooney has a whole rant about. </p><p>It takes Jessica too long to realize she needs to correct that has to a had, and by the time she’s started to processed that, she’s being tugged along by one of the new players. Everyone else is filing off the field, and only a few spectators linger. Spectators like to hurry out at the end of Eclipse games, like they’re ashamed of what they’ve witnessed. The sun shines like nothing’s changed. </p><p>“Jessica Telephone, right?” </p><p>“This is she,” Jessica responds automatically, looking around and finding she can’t remember any of the last innings. Did she do well? She’s one of the best in the league. That’s who she is. Her gaze lands on Jaylen. They’re still here. They’re on the field now, their too big hoodie still consuming their body, but they look more alive than they did at the last game. The hooded figures are still seated, though they make slight movements to follow Jaylen with whatever eyes they have behind those shadows. If they have eyes at all. Jessica knows not to rule anything out.</p><p>Jaylen walks with their head tilted, like they’re listening to a melody nobody else can hear, and their smile is all wrong. Their teeth are sharper than they used to be. There’s nothing wrong with that on its own, Jessica’s played with and against weirder, but she knows how Jaylen <i>should</i> be. How they used to be. And this isn’t it, this isn’t them. This is barely a person. They’re walking onto the field like they’re pacing back and forth, except forward, and the weak light of the sun struggles to stick to their face. The shadows crawl through the crevices of their face, reaching out like fingers. </p><p>“Actually,” Jessica says, holding up her hand. “Leave a message after the tone. I’ll be right back.” </p><p>“What’re you—“</p><p>She knows where she’s going this time. Her breathing is steady, and she can her heart beating steadily in her chest. Jessica is not absent from her body, and it is a vehicle of her will. Right now? Her will is to punch Jaylen Hotdogfinger so hard they’re left reeling for days. She knows the gods won’t let the damage stick, from her own personal experience getting into stupid fights, so she’s got to make every blow hurt. </p><p>They don’t even acknowledge her approach. They’re still studying the scoured ground, black stains where someone Jessica once loved stood. She knows she’ll get attached to the new players, knows she’ll learn their names like the back of her hand, and she fucking knows she’ll feel their absence like a gash opening up her chest that doesn’t heal with her flesh. That doesn’t leave gold flecks across her skin like glitter she has to scrub off in the shower that end up clogging the drain every time instead of scars. She’d rather have the marks. She’d rather <i>Jaylen</i> have the scars.</p><p>Her fist makes contact with the bridge of their nose, with all the fury and power of a gods blessed Blaseball player against a cursed bastard. Fuck the Garages, she thinks with violent furies, those idiots who thought they could drag someone back from the Hall without any consequences. Or maybe they thought they could shoulder those consequences, that it’d just be the disgrace to the splort that nobody gave a shit about anyway, that the gods would play fair. One for one, right? Didn’t they realize the gods never played fair?</p><p>Jaylen stumbles backwards, their legs shakey beneath them, and Jessica ignores that she was one of the earliest proponents of necromancy. She screams her rage, feels every thing she hates about this game rising up in her throat like taking a nice relaxing sip from the Acheron, and it’s completely coherent. </p><p>She’s hot in the face, even more consumed by all the loss and the pain than in the moments she’s had her team torn away from her. The umpires are untouchable, blindingly hot to the touch and might not even be sentient to begin with, but Jaylen is right fucking here. So touchable. Ashes in the wind brush against her face. Jessica sneezes and wonders who that was.</p><p>Nobody yells for her to stop.</p><p>Nobody pulls her back.</p><p>Nobody, not even Jaylen themself, is going to resist this. </p><p>If they weren’t already damned, trapped by laws they never agreed to, Jaylen might as well be half dead twice over. They might need a hospital. Instead, their face will knit itself back into shape, over night, ready to play again. Ready to pass that death sentence in their pitching hand onto another loved one. <br/>Jaylen topples completely on the next hit, slamming onto the ground at an uneven angle. Jessica’s seen them take worse. They’re good, took some self defense classes when they were a teen. Got really into it. She’s seen them fight. It’s nothing like this. They don’t even try to land neatly, though they throw a hand out reflexively. They don’t roll.<br/>The dark hooded figures that brought Jaylen here watch. The remaining members of the two teams stand conflicted, before one of the new Pies drags the rest of the team away with a “it’s none of our business.” A veteran, who’d seen the now dead through thick and thin, mutters that “she deserves it, anyway,” as he turns back. The Tigers’s expressions are more conflicted, more horrified by Jessica’s rage, but before any one of them can gather the courage to step up and say something, someone else does. </p><p>“Stop,” a whisper forces its way into the world. Jaylen’s shadow is cast like they’re still standing, like their hair is a bit messier. More stable, despite barely existing. Jessica steps back, shock driving the fierce grief apparent in the tears she’d let loose sometime in the middle of the violence away, just for a moment. </p><p>“Who?” she demands, harsh words escaping her too quickly. She knows who it is. There’s only one person it could be. </p><p>“Mike,” Jaylen forces out, between uneven breaths. Either Jessica’s punches or the awkward landing had knocked the wind out of them, and there are tears in their eyes too. Jessica isn’t sure if the name is a response to her demand or a form of dress. “Don’t waste your energy. It’s too bright for you.” </p><p>And he’s gone. Probably back to the shadows of the Garages’s headquarters. That’s where he haunts most of the time, according to the rumors. The rest of the Garages have been cagey on confirming or denying anything else. Jessica gets it. She wouldn't want to talk about the time she sacrificed one player for another, when she didn't even get the player back right. They're both nothing more than shadows. </p><p>Jessica’s left standing there. Exhaustion is starting to set in, like it does at the end of every game. She won’t collapse. She can’t even sleep, not until the next siesta, but she can feel tired. Off the field, or, apparently, if she stays on it too long. </p><p>“So?” Jaylen asks, and they’re sharp too. All jagged edges. Blood runs down their chin, and they pull a trembling hand up to wipe it away. They just make a bigger mess. “Aren’t you going to get back to it? Trying to send me back to the Hall, see if you can settle the gods damned score? Make me pay? Cuz, you're not the first to try.” </p><p>“That’s not—“ she begins, but she cuts off. Wasn’t that exactly what she was trying to do? She looks at her hands. The back of her knuckles are already starting to bruise. She managed to not break her thumb, but that’s pretty much it in terms of form. She finishes instead with, “You killed my team.” </p><p>The sharpness they’ve gathered falls to pieces in an instant. Spine torn right out. This isn’t the Jaylen that Jessica knew, as much as the last few words they’d spat out almost convinced her they were. They slump, hand coming back down to support their hunched form. They look like they haven’t eaten in weeks, not since they’ve gotten back. Hollow. Jessica recalls them desperately checking their pulse every time they went up to the mound, the look on their face every time a ball connected with a body. She hadn’t recognized it then, but she does know. Desperate shame. </p><p>“I did,” they say, and they don’t even try to apologize. There’s nothing they can say that would make up for this, especially not when the wounds are still fresh. “Probably going to kill more. I can feel it.” </p><p>“You can’t make that right.” </p><p>“I didn’t ask for this,” they say, and it’s not a prayer for forgiveness. It’s just a matter of fact statement. Something for Jessica to keep in mind. She does, damnit. She knows that this wasn't Jaylen's choice, that it wasn't really even the Garages or Mike fucking Townsend's, or anyone's. It's the gods.</p><p>This is what the fans don’t get, when they cheer "EAT" again and again, right behind her ear. She feels the buzz of those words, the hubris they represent. This is what the Garages’s empty bravado does nothing to pave over. The gods aren’t fair. They divide the players that should be natural allies against each other, offering leonine bargains again and again. If they’re to win or, more realistically, drag some semblance of a consolation prize out of this mess, it’s because one of them is using them to further its own agenda.</p><p>The Garages thought they were winning, thought they’d come up with an amazing scheme, but <i>this</i> is what came of it. Jaylen lying pathetic beneath Jessica’s futile rage. Blood that’s already starting to flake seeping into the field. Nightmares. A shadow clinging to the idiot that damned him. There's no hope.  </p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” Jessica replies, and her voice is vulnerable. Too vulnerable. She feels like she might fall to her knees too, in a single instant of pain while she remembers everyone she’s lost. How many people has it been? Even before Blaseball, she’s been surrounded by loss. People are like tissue paper around her, easily breakable, and relationships are fragile strings easier to snap than her fingers. She doesn't go to funerals. Not anymore. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeats but with a different tone. Stronger. </p><p>Jaylen tilts their head, like they’re waiting for her to attack again. Like they’re expecting it. They’ve been expecting this all day. They knew what was going to happen, expected recompense of some sort. Had they known when they’d let ball after ball fly and didn’t warn anyone? Could they, even? </p><p>Damnit.</p><p>Jessica doesn’t know what else there is to say. She’s not going to apologize for this. She’s not sorry. The blood on her hands is too easy to wash off, and the heat on Jaylen’s is never going to go away. She’s not going to apologize when she might as well be next. They’re still mostly dead, after all, and that debt is far from collected. They should’ve stayed gone instead of dragging others down with them, but it wasn’t their choice and. </p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” she says for a final time, wiping her trembling hands off on her pants. She could offer Jaylen a grip, pulling them up, but she doesn’t. Not right now. Not when the hurt is fresh.</p><p>Jaylen watches her leave. Their face burns blue with shame.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. and i've always lived like this</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Same trigger warnings from before, though suicide has moved from implied/referenced to very explicitly discussed, added discussion of unreality, mortality, grief, and specifically sibling death.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After the game, Jaylen sits with her knees to her chest beneath a tree. It trembles like she does. One of her eyes is returned to normal, the other is permanently the soft blue fire of the Hall’s torches and black of the ink that her body would melt into. Her pulse is strong, and she can hear her heart pounding. She can’t feel the weight above her anymore. The sense of incompleteness that’d followed her out of the hall, that’d diminished every time she took a life, is gone. She is fully alive for the first time in so long, and it aches. </p>
<p>She’d carve the lives she took into her skin, if she could, but nothing sticks. Nothing that the gods don’t force her to keep. She considers wearing an eyepatch for a moment, at least outside of the games, but she figures that it’d probably end up developing laser vision or something fucked up. The gods don’t take lightly to players hiding their “gifts.” </p>
<p>Nobody is watching her now. It’ll be a couple of days before the Siesta kicks in, and she’ll get to somewhere safe then. It’s not that anyone could or would hurt her sleeping form or keep her from making it to the field— the punishment for trying to prevent someone from playing is nasty, from what she’s heard, and she assumes the new top god’s going to keep that Law in place. It was there before the Discipline Era, it only makes sense for it outlast it. Just because she’s preaching fairness, doesn’t mean she has any idea what fair means. </p>
<p>Jaylen closes her eyes for five seconds, before opening them again. The sun is still bright in the sky, though the weather’s chilly. She’s still wearing the too big sweatshirt someone in the audience had tossed her after the game was over, to cover up the Shelled One’s Pods uniform. She wonders if they’ll want it back. How would she even know if anyone asking about it was sincere? She doesn’t think they’ll come looking, anyway. Whoever it is probably considers it an honor. There’s a logo for a band she’s never heard of on it, and she’s not even sure if it’s from her own dimension. Warm, though, and she likes the warm, now that she can feel it again. There’s a biting cold to the wind that’s different from the perpetual discomfort of undeath. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever get used to it, but she’s trying. She never appreciated how much there was to life before she died, and certainly not when she was half there. </p>
<p>She was so grateful, when she was called back to the Hall, even though it’d meant she had to face all those she’d struck down. At least she couldn’t do any more damage, was what she thought. Now she knows that was a lie. She could always do damage, even if it was just by leaving. And she can’t make anything good when she’s dead. Life had so much to it. </p>
<p>Has. She’s here now, watching the clouds drift by and feeling unburdened. It’s selfish of her to feel good, maybe, but she remembers her own words to Mike one night. </p>
<p>
  <i>”And what’s so wrong with that? What’s so wrong with wanting a happy ending? We’re all just people!”</i>
</p>
<p>Jaylen hadn’t chosen this, but she has to live with it. She gets to live with it, when so many others have died for it. Maybe the Coin, as she’s heard it called, will break the League in half again. Maybe it’ll tear her apart again, maybe she’ll be dragged right back down to the Hall in the first game of the Twelfth season. That’s not now, so she breaths in the crisp autumn air and watches as the leaves fall. This isn’t happiness. Jaylen doesn’t know what that looks like anymore, if she ever did, but it’s something real. </p>
<p>She hears a crack behind her. A stick breaks and leaves ruffle as someone steps off the path, into the park outside the stadium. Jaylen’s first impulse is to jump to her feet, to prepare for a fight, and her second impulse is to surrender. She listens to neither of those. She doesn’t even turn her head to acknowledge the approach. If it’s someone who hates her, she’ll fight them, and if it’s someone who loves her, she’ll probably tell them to fuck off. </p>
<p>It’s Jessica Telephone. </p>
<p>Their curly brown hair was tied up in complicated braids the last time they were up to bat, but those hair ties are around her wrist. The braids aren’t completely unravelled yet, but they will be. It’s getting in their face, though they don’t make any effort to clear it. They wear a black tank top that they hadn’t had on during any of the innings. It’s tight against their muscles, and if they were anyone else, Jaylen might’ve blushed, but she knows them too well to be impressed. Jessica Telephone is just another person, albeit one who’s wrapped an ancient cloak embroidered with gold around her wrist, tied up like a hoodie.<br/>
They look like Jaylen knows she did on Ruby Tuesday. Hollow. </p>
<p>She’s sure they’re about to attack them with accusations or fists again. She’s about to stand up, because she’s not going to take it lying down this time, even if she probably deserves it, but they don’t make a move. They just stand still, the trail of that heavy cloak dragging through the dirt. Their face is red with still wet tears, and their every muscle is locked into place. A harsh wind could probably blow them over.<br/>
Sebastian. Of course. </p>
<p>The only one incinerated this game. Returned to the Hall. He’d died the first time because of her. It was always because of her, wasn’t it? </p>
<p>“I’m not going to lie down and take it again,” she warns, adjusting her sitting position. </p>
<p>“No, it’s,” they start, staring off into the distance. Barely looking at her. “It’s not that.” </p>
<p>“Then… what?” Jaylen asks. It takes Jessica a moment to put their thoughts together enough to have an answer for her. This is the first time they’ve really been in the same place since Ruby Tuesday, really. They’d been at games together, obviously, but like…</p>
<p>They’d both done their best not to be anywhere near each other. Not that Jaylen was scared of <i>them</i>. She was fairly certain they’d gotten the anger over the deal out of their system, even after Sebastian had died. More, scared of the guilt. Scared of seeing what she could do to them, with her presence alone. Afraid of consequences. </p>
<p>She is consequences, though. She’s a living example of what happens to those who try to challenge the authority of the gods. </p>
<p>Those who hadn’t played for or against the Pods, or, some cases, both didn’t know what they were talking about when they said the Hall Stars had killed a god. Stupid. They’d distracted it for long enough for another god to kill it. She remembers the sickening crack as the Peanut’s shell splintered inside the Monitor’s tentacles, far above the field. All of the sounds it’d made had been psychic, exclusively heard in the minds of those there and transcribed for the rest of the world, and that scream had been louder than anything had the right to be. If it’d been verbal, ears would’ve bled. The force of its control that she’d barely been resisting with a rage so far away from holy shattered too, just in time for her and everyone else on the field to take cover from the fragmented crumbs falling like meteors.</p>
<p>There is nothing Jaylen can say to her old teammates and bandmates that could possibly convey the magnitude of that force. It had made the destruction of the Peanut look so effortless, barely acknowledged them except to warn them to tidy up for the new Boss. Because it could never be over. Because the players don’t get to win. </p>
<p>Player is a misnomer. They’re pawns, plain and simple. Replaceable. </p>
<p>“Can I sit?” </p>
<p>Jaylen blinks, her left eye flaring up with the rapid movement. She doesn’t know what she expected from them, but it wasn’t that. The part of her that screams for punishment and insists there is red in her ledger she will never wipe out insists she beg for violence and condemnation instead. Maybe nodding slowly and curtly is a form of self harm too. The healthy response might be to tell them to fuck off or that might be isolating herself further. It feels like there’s never a right answer.</p>
<p>But nodding slowly and curtly is her answer. Jessica responses with a brief, “thanks,” but they don’t sit down for a bit too long. They stare off into the distance, a million miles away. </p>
<p>“You can,” Jaylen voices the affirmative answer, after enough seconds pass that it’s awkward. The air seems to swallow her words, but they nod and move to take a seat with their back against the tree too. They descend slowly at first, before losing hold of their weight altogether and collapsing. They don’t let out a sound, even though the drop must hurt. Jaylen doesn’t know what to say, but she doesn’t want to leave the silence hanging there any longer. She’s tired of waiting for people to figure out how they feel about her. “Did you come looking for me?”</p>
<p>Too harsh. It comes off as hostile.</p>
<p>“What? Looking...” Jessica asks, trailing off.</p>
<p>“Did you come looking for me?” she tries again, a bit grateful for the failure to process. It lets these words come across more composed.</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I saw you leave, I think, and then I was walking and...” Their voice is too loud and too quiet all at once. “And. And now I’m here. Because here isn’t there, and everything was too much. Everyone there was so complicated.”</p>
<p>“I’m not exactly simple, Telephone.”</p>
<p>“Jessica,” they reply quickly, on impulse. Then they’re choked up in sobs again. Jaylen knows what that thought connected to. They don’t need to specify which of the twins they are. They’ll never say they’re the older one and be contradicted by a voice piping in after them again. They’ll never be half of a pair again. When Sebastian died the first time, Jaylen caught glimpses of his lives, across the fractured multiverse. One universal constant was Jessica. Strong, unwavering. Brutally headstrong, at times. This reality’s version of that pair, the one where the half broken but alive is sitting beside her, was identical. Their parents made jokes about being relieved about her transition because it made the two of them easier to tell apart.</p>
<p>This Jessica dyed her hair an ugly shade of green in high school on a dare and the Sebastian whose absence cuts into her dyed his to match. This Jessica stayed up all night with him talking about every little thing, held his hand when he got shots because he was afraid of needles. She preferred dogs, he preferred cats, and they fought about it nonstop. In the lighthearted way siblings fight sometimes, where they’re not really angry, they’re just looking for something to connect about. </p>
<p>Jaylen doesn’t have a sibling. Never has. But she’s got dozens of fragments like that buried beneath her skin, memories that feel like her own but are too sharp. </p>
<p>“Would it help if I said I was sorry?” </p>
<p>Jessica wipes some of the tears away and makes a sound like they’re trying to inhale. It’s weak. </p>
<p>“I don’t know.” </p>
<p>“You don’t need to.”</p>
<p>“I don’t know who I am,” they say, their words so small and plaintive. Like when they were a child. It’s a weakness that looks wrong on them. They’re Jessica goddamn Telephone, best batter in the league by several metrics. Beautiful, untouchable, doesn’t look back. On the Pods earlier today, they were all sharp toothed smiles and cold laughter like a mirror’s edge. They’d watched Sebastian die again, and they’d laughed with steel. His last words were the same, except this time, he didn’t finish the “you” in “Jess, I love you.” </p>
<p>Jaylen wants to hate them for that laugh. She knows it grated as she watched him try fruitlessly to get out those last words. It made her want to shake them. But it wasn’t their fault. Just like it wasn’t hers..</p>
<p>Jessica doesn’t look at her with anything at all. It’s because of the intense disassociation. They might not even process that it’s Jaylen they’re talking to. Jaylen’s been there before, in too many pieces to process the reality around her.</p>
<p>“You’re alive,” Jaylen says, after a long silence for contemplation. “You’re you.”</p>
<p>“I’m a weapon.” That response is shockingly coherent, shockingly quick, and Jaylen sucks in a breath at hearing her own refrain said out loud. Except it’s not a reassurance for Jessica. It’s a condemnation. Their head shakes from side to side slightly as they finish the last word, ever so slightly in denial, but what she’s denying, Jaylen doesn’t know.</p>
<p>“Yeah.” It’s the only thing Jaylen has to say that doesn’t fracture off into a thousand other lines of questions, demands. It is what it is, left up in the air.</p>
<p>“Aren’t you angry at me?” The turn of the head that follows this question isn’t slight. It’s sharp, sudden, as violent as their swings of the bat. Their face is scrunched up with some sort of emotion Jaylen can’t place. Their eyes still struggle to focus.</p>
<p>“For?”</p>
<p>“What do you think, for?” Their voice cracks on “for” and another sob wracks their body. They lean forward, collapsing into Jaylen’s form, and Jaylen takes the only course of action she can think of. She wraps her arm around Jessica’s back, patting it softly, in some awkward approximation of a hug. Jessica’s taller by a fair bit, but bent like this, Jaylen feels she’s towering over them. Jessica mumbles something into Jaylen’s chest that she can’t quite make out, though she thinks it might be in a different language.</p>
<p>“Could you say that again?”</p>
<p>Jessica pulls back, moving to sit all the way up, but Jaylen holds them tight. They clearly still need this more than they need to fit the rules of propriety.</p>
<p>“I said, I’m a fucking hypocrite.”</p>
<p>“And?” She doesn’t think too much about her response before it escapes her lips, regrets the word the moment she lets it.</p>
<p>“I hated you but I was laughing. I was laughing,” Jessica repeats, like it’s supposed to mean something. They laugh some with the words, hysterical and between agonized breaths. Her clear instability isn’t enough to stop the relief at the past tense that strikes Jaylen like lightning. Not forgiveness, not redemption, but it’s not nothing. “I was laughing, I was laughing. I didn’t— I was laughing, Jaylen. I’m so sorry.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t your fault,” she says, feeling a knot in her chest.</p>
<p>“But I was laughing. I’m still laughing. Why can’t I stop laughing?”</p>
<p>“You’re in shock. Several, really traumatic things happened to you in a relatively short time period, and your brain is in overload trying to process it all at once.” Jessica doesn’t get it. What was the phrase that her therapist had used, summing it all up so succinctly? “System overload.”</p>
<p>“But. But— I wasn’t. I wasn’t always laughing. I haven’t— I don’t break like this. I don’t laugh. I’m not a laugher. Shit— that word doesn’t mean anything anymore.” Their words bleed together, and there’s something about them that’s too familiar. A way of breaking down that would fit Mike to a tee. They hadn’t talked after he got back from the shadows, despite everything that’d passed between them while he was in there. Those memories had been too hard to touch, for both of them. They hadn’t talked much before Jaylen’s incineration either, certainly never to the point of holding each other, so Jaylen didn’t know how he’d be to hold. But she’s pretty sure it’d be something like this. “Giggling? Cackling? I was cackling?”</p>
<p>“Breathe, Jessica,” Jaylen says. They try, pulling air in, but on the exhale, she panics. The next inhale is rapid-fire, a bunch of small puffs all at once. “Jessica.”</p>
<p>“He’s dead, I’m laughing, I was laughing, the gods are always laughing, I’m just as bad as them, I’m worse than you. At least you had the dignity to hurt about it, being a weapon, I was laughing.”</p>
<p>“There’s nothing dignified about pain.”</p>
<p>Jaylen doesn’t want to admit there were times that she wished the gods would take away her hurt too, to turn her into a monster instead of just a weapon. She doesn’t let that guilt show, and maybe that’s a mistake, because now Jessica is looking up at her like she’s got something to say.</p>
<p>“What’s the point of all this?” They gesture weakly, still wheezing. They mean more than the conversation, more than Jaylen’s debt, more than the Shelled One’s Pods, she’s pretty sure. The Dial Tone is strapped against their back in a scabbard, sticking out at an awkward angle. The cursed thing. Jaylen wouldn’t take it for all the blaseball skill in the world. She’s heard the stories, that Jessica pulled it out of the stone like some sort of modern day King Arthur, but she’s pretty sure the damn bat’s closer to Clarent.</p>
<p>They look like they could be Mordred, right about now, with that ancient cloak embroidered with a thousand different runes discarded carelessly around their waist. They wore a crown during the game, made of rusted iron. She doesn’t know when or how they got rid of it. They were still wearing it when she’d fled after the game had ended, before the release of the Hall Stars and Aequitas’s ascent. Maybe thrown into the crowd like a t-shirt at a concert, like she’s seen them do before. More likely, it’s sitting somewhere on the ground, thrown with disgust. A traitor’s crown isn’t worth wearing. Everything beautiful and blessed about them is set aside. What’s the point of Blaseball? they ask without asking, if not to suffer with glory.</p>
<p>“Nothing.”</p>
<p>“What,” Their pitch doesn’t turn up at the end of the sentence so it’s less like a question and more like a statement. She tries again: “What?”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t matter,” Jaylen repeats, a mantra Jessica gave to her with punches she would’ve sworn she deserved a thousand times over. How long has it been now? She doesn’t want to check. She still doesn’t know how long she was in the Hall. “Blaseball doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean? Nothing else matters.”</p>
<p>“We’re weapons, and it doesn’t matter.” Jessica laughs again, aiming for a bitter tone, but it turns hysterical quick. Jaylen looks up at the tree the two women are resting beneath, watching leaves threaten to tear from their branches. Their edges are kissed with crimson and gold.</p>
<p>“You’re saying you don’t care? You killed my, my—“</p>
<p>They pull away from the hug, firmly this time, and Jaylen lets them go. There’s a difference between an obligatory pull away out of shame, and a genuine desire to disentangle. Jaylen wasn’t the best at figuring out those sort of lines before she died, but if you’re in the Hall of Flame for long enough, you learn to get good at comfort. You learn the language of bodies and pain and, above all, grief. Even if she'd tried to avoid everyone, she learned.</p>
<p>“It’s not about caring. Of course I care. But mattering is something different? Like, it’s not going to change anything. There’s nothing to prove.”</p>
<p>“There’s everything to prove,” they reply, fiercely. They wipe their face once, taking care to avoid pressing the buttons. There’s a regality to the pose they adopt. “Always.”</p>
<p>It was inevitable, really, that this woman clawed her way up as far as she did. The sun casts her in sharp lines. Her colors are vibrant, always, unlike Jaylen, who always feels one shade away from completely ashen. Even when Mike’s around, pulling the shadows off course, she’s just…</p>
<p>She’s just Jaylen Hotdogfingeres. Defined by her messiness.</p>
<p>There’s nothing epic about her.</p>
<p>“That’s terrifying.”</p>
<p>“Isn’t the idea of irrelevance even worse?”</p>
<p>Jaylen thinks Jessica is one of those players who might’ve chosen this splort, if they hadn’t been drafted. Most of the people who say that are just grandstanding. Either that, or grappling with their sudden loss of autonomy, but there are a few. Wyatt Quitter used to be one, though Jaylen’s not sure if they still are. Landry Violence, for sure. Was he disappointed to be freed?</p>
<p>“No,” she answers, sincerely.</p>
<p>Jessica is quiet for a bit, occasionally letting out gasping breaths and threatening to fall back into those sobs. They breathe, counting up to and down from ten on their fingers again and again. Jaylen takes the moments to try to recapture that fleeting feeling of tranquility. There’s a heat in her chest she pushes down, forces the light to die out. She doesn’t want to burn anymore.</p>
<p>The sun is setting soon. Normally, this time, not swallowed by anything. There is no fire to fear, no debts to be collected. With any luck, never again, though Jaylen knows better by now. There’s no good fortune. Not in this world, not in the next. The skies are dyed with the first hints of pink, so soft and so distant. Jaylen wonders if the gods are above them, watching this planet from the stars. Probably not. They’ve only appeared during the games, which means… something about the immaterial plane. Something about the sudden, violent shift in perspective that she’s felt every time she’s stepped onto and off of the field.</p>
<p>She doesn’t need to solve the mysteries of Blaseball. She doesn’t want to understand the gods. She just wants to live, really live. She wants to wake up every morning with the sheets tangled around her body in a mess, slam the alarm clock’s snooze button a dozen time. Jaylen knows, logically, that her dreams will be nightmares when and if they return to her— how could they not be, after everything she’s seen? — but that doesn’t change how much she aches for them. There’s something about the routine. She wants wounds that need bandages, scars that last. She wants to grow and change. Her body is still twenty three— it’s been almost four years since the return of blaseball.</p>
<p>One day.</p>
<p>No more killing. One place to stay in, neighbors who know her face without any claim to fame attached to it, and time measured by more than just games. It’s a beautiful dream, one she’s starting to believe might even be reachable. She was so close, too, and she’ll mourn that lost opportunity eventually. Axel deserved the opportunity, she knows, but…</p>
<p>It’s okay. She’ll keep going, until she doesn’t need to anymore. She’s free from the debt, at the very least, and that’s enough for now.</p>
<p>She doesn’t notice she’s crying too.</p>
<p>Jessica pushes their hair out of their face, reaching some sort of composure. For a moment, they seem like they’re preparing for war, about to stand up and go march out, swinging the Dial Tone with lethal force. Then, they sigh, the tension draining out of them.</p>
<p>“Can you tell me about the Hall?” Jaylen lets her legs go down and crosses them instead, a more relaxed position, not looking or acknowledging Jessica’s question. “Look, I know you said you wouldn’t. But Tillman started to, and I’m pretty sure he’s full of shit, and…” They trail off. “And I need to know if he’s okay.”</p>
<p>By he, she’s fairly certain they don’t mean Tillman.</p>
<p>“Let me think, okay?”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Jessica agrees. “You don’t have to.”</p>
<p>“I want to. I do, it’s just. If I tell anyone, I kind of have to tell everyone. And I’m really sick and tired of being the dead girl, you know? It took so long to get people to stop asking the first time. They kept saying that I owed them, because I was the reason half the people they wanted to know about where down there in the first place, like that was supposed to make me want to talk?” They nod. “And I’m sorry, I’m not a good person. Obviously I’m not, because if I was a good person, I’d still be down there. But I don’t want to die anymore, so—“</p>
<p>She swallows. Too much.</p>
<p>“So no?” Jessica’s response is surprisingly accepting. Maybe they know what it’s like to be surprised by your own will to live.</p>
<p>“So… let me think about it. I don’t even know what I would say, I’m kind of… used to trying to forget about it, at this point. Used to trying to forget about a lot of things.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, I get that.” “Don’t think anyone in the League doesn’t get that. We’re all coming out of this a mess, if we come out of it at all.” She looks around for Mike instinctually. “I… do you want the truth? Or a reassuring lie?”</p>
<p>“I—“ Jessica begins, but they stop. They have to think about it first. Jaylen doesn’t know what she’d chose, if she didn’t know. They look at their hands. “I can’t ask how bad the truth is, that’d defeat the point of the comforting lie.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, it would.”</p>
<p>They consider.</p>
<p>“The truth. I won’t tell anyone.”</p>
<p>“No, you can. Don’t like, shout it from the rooftops that I’m open to being harassed or anything, but if you want to tell your parents or something.” She regrets mentioning their parents. The drop in their expression is sudden and painful. They clench their fists, trying to keep the ache off their face, but it’s too late. From what she knows, Jessica’s parents are some of the better ones in the League. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“It’s not—“ Jessica begins, but they stop. No, it is her fault. She’s why he burned in the first place. “Just… tell me? If he’s going to be okay?“</p>
<p>“I can’t say that. You know him better than me. Some of your older teammates, they were doing fine, last I saw but... Wasn’t exactly super popular last time I was down there, you know,” she chuckles nervously, and Jessica laughs too. Their laugh still has that manic edge to it. Jaylen is worried they’re going to start sobbing again, so she keeps going, “but anyway, it’s not... bad. Surreal, yeah, definitely, especially at first, but it’s easier when there’s more people. Easier to keep track of your sense of self.”</p>
<p>“You were the first,” Jessica states, like they’re only realizing that for the first time. “You were alone.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t as bad as you might be thinking. No way to keep track of time, no external stimulation, I more or less drifted until Fitzgerald showed up.”</p>
<p>“That would’ve been...”</p>
<p>“Thirteen days. I checked, when I got back. A lot, actually, dates kind of became a bit of a compulsion. I don’t know how long it was between him arriving and us running into each other, he said he’d been lost for a bit already, and... like I said, no way to keep track of time.”</p>
<p>“It was inside?”</p>
<p>“Sort of. Also, sort of... not. It was underwater. We had physical forms, but they dissolved if we tried to do anything too active. Sort of. Talking was hard, since you couldn’t get excited or angry without falling apart into ink. Wasn’t as much of a problem for me as it was for some others. Landry had a big problem with that.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“He never really learned what an inside voice was,” Jessica says, fondly, and Jaylen flinches. They don’t notice. “I don’t supposed you’d know anything about where the Hall Stars are now?” “As much as you do,” Jaylen replies. Not jealous. Not jaded.</p>
<p>“You’re not mad about being left behind? I think I’d be furious.”</p>
<p>“What does anger do for me?” She sighs. “I used to be angry. Season 1, I was pissed. I didn’t want to play some fucked up splort game. I was going into politics, I was going to change things. I went to college, I studied hard, graduated top of the class. Did you know I have a degree in poli-sci?” Jessica shakes her head. “I felt like my entire life was ripped away from me, and I wanted it back, and.... And then I died.”</p>
<p>“If I died…” Jessica trails off, and Jaylen connects the dots.</p>
<p>“It didn’t fix me or anything. I didn’t come to terms with anything, I just… stopped caring. Some people took it better, especially the more full the Hall got. They were anchors for each other, and I. I don’t know. People came looking for me, as the first one, and, I just told them to fuck off, you know? I didn’t... The farther I walked down the Hall, the better, because it meant I was further away from anything that could keep me together. I didn’t... want to live. But Sebastian’s nothing like that, right?”</p>
<p>“What, suicidal? I don’t think so.“</p>
<p>Jaylen is a bit taken aback by how bluntly Jessica puts it, but they’re right, aren’t they? What else could you call it?</p>
<p>“Um. I’m not— Not like that anymore, haven’t been since…” She wracks her mind for a date, an event, something to tie this revelation to, but she comes up empty. Honestly, it’s still a surprise. “For a while. Like, the thoughts come back, but I don’t want to act on them, and even if I did, we can’t die, so it doesn’t matter.”</p>
<p>“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”</p>
<p>“Even knowing what my life has cost?”</p>
<p>The question hangs in the air. Jessica looks at their fingernails. They’re not painted now, far from it. They’ve been chewed down at uneven angles, one is barely hanging on there. Their surprised reaction is almost imperceptible, but Jaylen is studying their sharp face and sees their mouth widen.</p>
<p>“What do you want me to say?”</p>
<p>“Right. Um. The Hall. You don’t need to eat or sleep, time gets measured pretty loosely. Lots of gossip about old teammates. Things were a lot more crowded when I got sent back, duh, because. You know. Your brother was doing okay. He makes friends easily, right?”</p>
<p>Jessica laughs again, half sobbing again. She breaths in and out, trying to reclaim the faint semblance of composure she’s claimed. “And the Commissioner is doing a great job.”</p>
<p>Give a self evident statements, get a self evident statement, she supposes. He had even been decent to her, after she’d gotten dragged back, though he hadn’t wanted to talk much. For obvious reasons. All around great guy, Sebastian Telephone, willing to roll with the punches and smile the whole time. Nothing like his regal sister, except, perhaps, in his drive. They both had something to prove.</p>
<p>“He’s going to be okay.”</p>
<p>“What about us?” Jessica asks, somewhere between acceptance and desperation. She shrugs in response, leaning forward a bit to try to see a bird better. Not one of the dark crows that are drawn to Blaseball games like their more mundane cousins might be drawn to corpses. Those ones congregate in swarms of with feathers that shine like obsidian sharpened to a point, enough in numbers to block out the second sun and mean enough to want to. The crows always seemed to like her, but she knows that comes at a cost. This is… just a hummingbird. Small, fragile. Flighty and colorful. It is mundane, and it is beautiful for that.</p>
<p>It is beautiful for so many reasons.</p>
<p>“We’re…”</p>
<p>She wonders if this hummingbird has a family, out there. A family it can’t help but love, someone who will take care of it when it is weak. Who will inevitably fall to time and the world around them, who will be replaced with new loved ones. One day, this hummingbird will die too, and it will be replaced.</p>
<p>San Francisco Lovers, huh? She’s only ever been there for the games before. Never really got much of a chance to explore. She’s heard good things about it, though. The views are stunning, and there’s so much to be said about the architecture. Fascinating political structure. It’d come up in class a lot.</p>
<p>“We’re still here. For now, right?”</p>
<p>“For now,” Jessica replies. “And, if we’re not tomorrow, then… I guess we deal with that tomorrow. We’re just human, you know?” She closes her eyes, one shining blue, watching the afterimage spark across her vision. As she breaths in and out, tries to exist, she hears the sound of Jessica pulling the Dial Tone out. It makes a strange ticking noise as it moves through the air, one she’s heard sometimes moments after the ball’s already gone flying out of the park. Time is strange in Blaseball, but especially when it’s around. She’s irrationally afraid Jessica is planning on hitting her with it, and she wonders what that would even do, but no. She’s just putting it down to sit more comfortably.</p>
<p>Jaylen feels a weight settle onto her lap, and opens her eyes to see Jessica’s head</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Jessica mumbles, eyes wet again, “Really sorry.”</p>
<p>“We’re only human,” she repeats. “Um, are you. Sure about this?”</p>
<p>“I can move,” Jessica moves to sit up, but Jaylen shakes her head.</p>
<p>“No, it’s fine, it’s just. Are you sure? It’s… me, you know?”</p>
<p>“Thank you,” they say, collapsing again. There’s a weightlessness to them now, a vulnerability that makes them seem like they’re sleeping. She might’ve thought they were, if she didn’t know they wouldn’t be able to till the Siesta. “And, I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>A younger Jaylen might’ve said they didn’t need to apologize, but she knows better know. She just nods.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. all the echoes that have faded out</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For the first time ever, Jessica Telephone dreams with perfect clarity. </p><p>For the second time in one Siesta, Jessica Telephone wakes with a start. For the third time in as many years, Jessica Telephone has seen her brother die. </p><p>These should all be impossible. Jessica has never dreamed, not even before Blaseball took the option away from her. And even if it was possible, for her or for anyone, it wouldn’t explain how shocking real it felt. She could taste the acrid scent of incineration on the wind, could feel the scorching heat of the Ump’s flames. The Dial Tone had been with her, the ancient bond with her bat ringing as true in the dream as it did in real life, and she knows that couldn’t have possibly carried over. </p><p>She steps out of bed, still wearing nothing more than baggy sweatpants and a black tank top, looking for it, and she finds it laid against her nightstand, just like it was pre-Siesta. She runs her hands over its handle, feeling the buzz of strange energy that runs through her every time she makes contact. It is confidence and steel, and it should be humming with withdrawal. Just looking at the clock she’s got sitting on her nightstand, numbers and letters glowing red say it’s been a while since the last round of the Coffee Cup. Yet, it’s not. She knows she’s mostly just anthropomorphizing something that’s mostly a reflection of herself, but it’s <i>satisfied.</i> </p><p>She lets go, sitting back down. </p><p>The next Season has not yet begun, Jessica’s sure of it. The Siesta is on, but she’s awake anyway. And she has just played a game. And if she’s feeling it, if it’s actually happened, then, was that actually Seb? She doesn’t want to accept that. Not having seen him in so long is bad but him incinerated again is even worse. </p><p>A phone rings. Her cell, not the complicated metaphysical one that only people she trusts with her life and the inexplicable forces of Blaseball knows the number to. She picks it up from where she left it fully charged but unplugged. Apparently there’s a glitch that if you leave your phone plugged in for too long, there’s a tiny chance of it starting to bleed from the headphone jack, and Jessica’s never going to be in the mood to clean that shit up. Blooddrain’s been bad enough on the hotels her teams have stayed at over the years. </p><p>Anyway, she presses accept without even checking the caller ID, and she’s really not prepared to see Jaylen Hotdogfingers on the other side of a FaceTime camera. She’s also not prepared to see that Jaylen apparently sleeps in surprisingly cute pajamas with dinosaur designs on them. They really don’t match their general aesthetic. Jessica figures she should be used to being surprised by Jaylen by now, but she can’t seem to help herself.</p><p>“You’re up too?” Jessica asks, and <i>that’s</i> not particularly surprising. </p><p>“The game,” Jaylen confirms. “Ghosts of Tsushima versus the Danger Zone. It was real?” </p><p>“I was there too. Not so sure about real. Why are you calling me?” </p><p>Jaylen doesn’t respond. They’re sitting crosslegged, back up against their bed’s backboard. They look to their left, and the laptop they must be calling from tilts from side to side, giving her a bit of a better look at the room. The lights are still off, but the shine of the screen and the faint glow of Jaylen’s blue eye illuminate it. It’s bigger than Jessica’s cramped little hotel room, more personalized. There is a series of the swords hanging on the wall, reflecting back the cerulean light, and the blankets are customized with hearts, diamonds, spades, and clubs, on a white background. To the sides are other beds, though Jessica can’t identify any of the sleeping figures. They don’t seem to have woken from their siesta induced slumber. </p><p>“I asked—“ </p><p>“If we both played the same game, then we both saw the same deaths, right?” </p><p>Jessica swallows her words. </p><p>“It doesn’t mean anything.” </p><p>Jaylen’s unfocused, pulling up something on their computer. They type fast, Jessica notes, just from the faint clicking sounds. </p><p>“It wasn’t just us. There’s a lot of people talking about it and— oh.” </p><p>“Oh?” Jessica angles her phone, trying to get a better look at Jaylen’s suddenly concerned expression. </p><p>“You should stay off social media for a bit,” they say, with a tone that makes Jessica’s heart drop right down to her stomach. Their eye flickers off, all black, and she wonders if they even notice. </p><p>“What’s going on?” Jessica asks, looking around her own room as if whatever Jaylen’s seen is going to creep in through the window. </p><p>“It’s. It’s not good, can I leave it at that?” </p><p>“Jaylen.” </p><p>“Jessica.” Jaylen’s eye starts to glow again, even softer than before. Their voice is gentle. It always is, somehow. Jessica used to think of everything about them like nails on a chalk board, dragging the wrong material against reality and leaving a screech, but they’re nothing like that. They’re just human. “You don’t need to know. It’s just going to hurt you.”</p><p>“Fuck you, you don’t get to make decisions for me. If this is about Seb, then fuck you even more, it’s your fault.” </p><p>Jaylen’s quiet does a bit again. They do that, like they’re giving every word a once over. Do they even realize how fucking calculating it makes them look? How insincere?</p><p>“You’re right. I have other people to check in on.” They shut off the call. That’s it. Jessica’s supposed to be relieved by this, but all she’s left with is the sudden silence and emptiness of this room that isn’t her own, a body that’s too big for her. The loudest sound here is her own heartbeat, and those last words echo around the room and through Jessica’s head. </p><p>She pulls open those apps on her phone, scrolls past dozens of messages from mutuals asking her how she is— badly, obviously— and ignoring the half a dozen photography bots she’s following. She’s not interested in seeing pictures of Hades wildlife, not even if this hellhound’s got an unprecedented amount of eyes. The phrase <b>more than a dream</b> is already trending, the description box beneath it describing the events of the game with such an unattached tone that would’ve filled the early Jessica with righteous rage. Now she’s just vaguely miffed.</p><p>She refreshes the page, and it’s jumped up a spot. #RIVSEB has replaced it, and although she knows better, although Jaylen’s already warned her, she clicks it. It’s exactly what she thought, and it’s so much worse. Each message feels like a punch to the gut. She wants to throw up, but her body just won’t let her. She hasn’t eaten anything in weeks. There’s nothing but the will of the gods sustaining her right now, and it barely feels like that. </p><p>Another incoming call. She barely looks at the caller ID before declining, too busy seeing every single smart ass comment someone has to say. Three times, like it’s some sort of record, campaigns to bring him back just to kill him again, half assed condolences, and way too many dumb ass questions about why the hell this is trending when he’s supposed to be dead. She just keeps scrolling. Each word fades into dust the moment she’s not reading it anymore. Everything is ash. There wasn’t any horror on his face this time. No last words, no sentences choked by the flame and smoke. Blue fire— Jaylen’s fire. She’d thought that was the last time she’d have to see it. Everyone said it was over. Debt settled, renegotiated, whatever, she doesn’t give a fuck. It was supposed to be over. </p><p>She doesn’t want to think about Jaylen’s face, haunted and hollow as she was on Ruby Tuesday. <i>I don’t care.</i></p><p>After Day X. When she’d been falling apart because of this same exact fucking thing, and they’d been there, with some sort of fragile tranquility. Jessica had seen that. She’d seen one of the most damaged and fucked up players the League had to offer almost beginning to pull herself together, and she’d found that comforting. </p><p>She’d found so much comfort in his <i>killer</i>. What a monster. </p><p>They’d been trying so hard, and it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because it wasn’t enough the first time, it wasn’t enough the second time, and it wasn’t enough now, so who cares? She’s not going to forgive them, not going to let go of her rage, when sometimes her rage is the only thing keeping her going. Yes, she’d said she’d forgiven them before, that it wasn’t their fault, that she knew how hard it was to resist the gods, but, fuck her for taking it back. She doesn’t want to be healthy, she wants to be angry, and she can’t fight all these idiots online making <i>jokes</i>. She knows they’re only trying to cope too, and she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about the why. </p><p>She hates this.</p><p>She stands up again, leaving her phone on the bed, and walks over to the window. The glass is reinforced, strong enough to withstand gunfire, even though there’s really no point to it. Anything that really wanted to hurt someone in a place like this would be stronger than a bullet. It’s a facade, an illusion of safety in a world where there’s no such thing. There will never be such a thing, not as long as the gods rule over the stars. She shivers at that thought, even though the room’s plenty warm. </p><p>Those stars reach across the Kansas City sky. There are hundreds of thousands of them, golden pinpricks so far away. Impossible to reach, impossible to pull down to earth and even if she could, she’d only get burned by their impossible heat. Would that kill a Blaseball player? Or would it just leave her as melted slag, slowly stitching back together? </p><p>Sebastian always liked the stories people told about them. The two of them would climb to the roof of their apartment in downtown Hades, and he’d tell her about his favorite star of the week. She’d stolen more than a few of those stories to tell her girlfriends over the years, though she can’t remember any of them now. The constellations are all wrong now, ever since the Peanut died and the Crabs ascended. Everything fits together wrong. </p><p>So close, but so far. </p><p>Just out of reach. </p><p>She crosses back over to her bed and pulls up her texts, scrolling past all of them to get back to Jaylen. <i>Thanks,</i> she types out, before deleting it and starting over again. <i>I’m sorry.</i> No, that’s not right either. It doesn’t ring sincere. She starts, <i>I want</i> but she doesn’t know how to finish it. Outside of with, my brother back, but that’s obvious, isn’t it? Of course she wants him back, she needs him like she needs her legs to run to the next base and her hands to wield the Dial Tone. </p><p>She looks back out the window. It’s so clear out here. She can see the different blues and purples of the Milky Way above them. </p><p>Jessica Telephone is not okay. She hasn’t been okay for a long time, and her brother back wouldn’t change anything. There’s nothing that can fix her, not this game and not all of the gods dead at her feet. She’ll still be seeing flickers at the corner of her vision that she can’t quite blink away, traces of voices, cut off I love yous. </p><p><i>I’m not a good person,</i> she tries. <i>Don’t waste your time on me.</i></p><p>She stares at that one, and she doesn’t know how long she’s sitting there, waiting to send it. Her nails are still polished with Machiato City colors, she notices, though they’ve been chipping. She picks at some of the last bits remaining. She’s gotten a lot better at doing her nails over the years. Before Blaseball, she’d been more random about the colors, though she’d still done the numbers. Tried to, anyway, the first ones had been more squiggly lines, and the more complicated numbers like fives and threes and eights had been blurry blobs of color and black for years. Now, they’re much more neat. </p><p>
  <i>I don’t know why you’re</i>
</p><p>Why they’re what?</p><p>
  <i>I wish I was</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I want</i>
</p><p>She doesn’t know what she wants, what she wishes. She tries to close her eyes, wants to let the siesta take her away again, but she knows her body and the intricate push and pull of whatever forces guide the long sleep well enough by now. Jessica will be awake for at least another day, if not longer. Damnit. </p><p>
  <i>Thank you for checking in on me.</i>
</p><p> “Ugh, too formal,” Jessica mutters out loud. She hates texting. She hates the long pauses, the indecision. At least when you’re talking to someone face to face, you can just fuck up and deal with the consequences then and there. All this time makes her second guess herself, when she really just wants to say something, anything. </p><p><i>You aren’t the umpires. You aren’t the gods,</i> she decides on, just sending it. Her body tenses as she waits for a reply that… </p><p>Doesn’t come. </p><p>Right. </p><p>Jaylen said she had other people to check on. Jessica can’t expect to be their priority, and… that’s only fair. Still, they add just a bit more. </p><p><i>And, thank you. For trying to warn me. I should’ve listened.</i> <br/><i>You did everything you could.</i></p><p>It wasn’t enough. It will never be enough, but they know that. Never look back, right? Jessica’s not a tiger anymore, and thank goodness, because she’s been doing a piss poor job of following that particular piece of advice. She’s given up on a response by the time her phone buzzes again, and she’s sure it’s someone else, but no. It’s them. </p><p>
  <i>thx</i>
</p><p>Just three letters. But it’s something. </p><p>It’s something.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. the world is ours</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tw: same as before, brief mention of alcohol and alcoholism</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>The candles were a mistake,</i> Jaylen notes absentmindedly. They were a compromise, some of the people from SIBR had been fighting for a good old bonfire before someone, she’s not sure who, had not-so-politely informed them that would be a disaster at best. So, something smaller. Two tables covered with candles, and they’re beautiful, really.</p><p>Each one is handmade, arranged in fractals and other sorts of complicated patterns that would make her head spin if she actually tried to decipher them, instead of just appreciating the effort. They’re all different colors too, with designs reminiscent of all the different teams. There’s a fair number for the Hall Stars, but none for the Shelled One’s Pods. Not worth commemorating, apparently.</p><p>She thought there might be one to represent each player as some sort of fucked up memorial at first and had been about to get angry, but the numbers are all wrong. Both for incinerated or otherwise gone and for still living and for combined. </p><p>It’s better than a bonfire. Nobody who walked into this courtyard by accident started crying or screaming. Most of the players who wandered this way just froze up for a second as they saw the display and turned right back around. There were more of them at the beginning of the Ball. The word had spread, apparently, that this was a place to be avoided. Jaylen likes to think it’s because of the fire, but she’s sure the fact that she’s sitting here, on a stone bench carved with floral designs just across from the display, is contributing. </p><p>It’s cold out here. Thick clouds cover the moon and stars above Boston, leaving the light to come in through muted stained glass windows and flicker off those candles. Faint golden light on stone pavement. Jaylen isn’t wearing anything heavier over her black suit jacket, and she feels the bite of the winter chill dig deep. She glories in it as much as she can, trying to embrace the mundanities of being alive, but it’s hard. It’s hard, and she wants to go back inside, away from the candles and their flickering lights. They leave shadows without anyone in them. </p><p>Mike is inside, lurking in some of the shadier hallways. He was out here with her earlier, but she’d told him to go have fun. She kind of regrets not letting him stay like he’d offered, but not enough to go back inside. This was supposed to be a fun, no pressure event, celebrating the end of the siesta before Season Twelve starts in a couple of weeks. For most people, it has been. </p><p>Players are supposed to put aside team rivalries and ideological conflicts to dance and pretend their problems are nonexistent. Slolstice might be a time of darkness, but it’s also about gathering together, celebrating solidarity. It’s a beautiful idea, one that the Lovers managed to talk Jaylen into believing for long enough to get her dressed up and to the gates. Her belief shattered the moment she stepped into the ballroom, and the dancing stopped. Not all at once, and it wasn’t like the band spluttered to a stop along with them, but…</p><p>She’d made an excuse about looking for the bathroom and found her way here instead. Somewhere out of the way, where she couldn’t do any harm. It’s not self isolation, she tells herself. She’s over with that. It’s just, taking care of everyone else. She knows most of the anger is a cover for fear, for grief, and she doesn’t take it personally. She’s doing <i>better</i>. It’s not her fault they can’t see past her throwing arm, poised so carefully to be harmless, out of the way, or the blue and black eye. </p><p>She’s still human. She barely measures up, in the face of the extremes of carcinization or whatever new adaptation the Hellmouth dreams up. But claws and teeth sharp enough to crunch bone are nothing to the promise of flame. She’s the fear of being left behind to people, and damn, if that isn’t worse than any amount of pain.</p><p>She’s not bitter. She doesn’t have the right to be. There’s no reason for this burning in her chest. </p><p>She closes her eyes. Opens them again. Focuses on the flickering lights. They are beautiful, Jaylen admits. She wasn’t particularly opposed to fire before Blaseball, before it consumed her. If anything, flames were a source of comfort, big and small. She recalls late summer nights spent around campfires, singing songs that didn’t drown out the sound of cicadas with people she hasn’t talked to in years, roasting marshmallows and Hannukah evenings in Mike’s dorm, stealing the gelt his parents had sent him and betting on which candles would burn down faster. If she doesn’t think too hard, she can almost pretend she’s back then again. </p><p>Cross legged, ukulele positioned beneath fingers she moves carelessly, with nothing to fear from every passerby outside the door, a stranger to the world and everything it had to offer, singing lyrics that nobody else would ever hear. No second looks. Jaylen had hated being ignored so much. She’d always sworn she’d be known one day. She’d said she’d do something great and would make everyone hear her.</p><p>She’d do anything to go back to that.</p><p>Except die again.</p><p>Jaylen is stirred from her thoughts by another straggler making their way into the courtyard. She expects the standard startled double take, the look at her that ranges somewhere from disgust to pity to fear to barely restrained violence, and she doesn’t take the time to check. She doesn’t want to see it, doesn’t want to see who it is. She’d rather be left alone as she tries to work up the strength to leave.</p><p>They don’t turn right back around. They put a hand on the doorframe to steady themself, their dirty blonde hair hanging loose like it’s been freed from a pony tail. They wear a teal halter dress and simple black slippers, an outfit that doesn’t match their pained breathing. The red numbered buttons that cross her cheek clash with the wet blood that mars Jessica Telephone’s perfect face. </p><p>“You look like shit,” they say. Jaylen rolls her eyes as she turns to face them.</p><p>“I managed to avoid getting into a fight at a party celebrating <i>unity</i>. What the hell happened?” Jaylen would be offended if it was anyone else, but it’s Jessica. She’s more surprised when they don’t go out of their way to be a bitch. Most of the half decent conversations they’ve had took place when they were having a crisis of some variety. Jaylen tries not to hold their attitude against them.</p><p>“I didn’t do shit,” they step forward, looking from the candles to the bench where Jaylen’s sitting. “Ugh, scoot over.” </p><p>Key word: tries. </p><p>“Since you asked so nicely.” Jessica pops themself down, one hand up to try to wipe the blood away but they only end up smearing it around. They give up. Jaylen eyes them nervously, wondering what they’re doing here. She’d seen them and Wyatt (Quitter) talking before she’d abandoned the party and had felt more than a little uncomfortable seeing the ex-pods socializing, but Jessica had seemed happy enough even though she wasn’t the life of the party anymore. “Do you want a napkin or something? I could go get some.” </p><p>“Oh, don’t bother yourself on my behalf. I wouldn’t want you getting your ass kicked by some self righteous asshats for nothing,” they say, and there’s bite in those words, between the pained breaths. Not directed at Jaylen, but she’s got enough experience with Jessica’s venom and all the ways it burns to flinch. </p><p>“People haven’t pulled anything since I came back the second time.”</p><p>“Since you killed the Peanut,” they spit out. </p><p>“Since the Hall Stars distracted it so the Monitor could. Jessica, what happened?” She pulls back a bit, letting them move to take up even more of the bench. Another peaceful moment they’ve come storming into like a wrecking ball. Blaseball players can’t drink— the ever-so-convenient immunity to poisons keeping all of the players from turning into alcoholics — but that doesn’t mean they don’t try, and they look like they’ve been trying. </p><p>“What do you think happened?” Jaylen doesn’t say anything, not responding to Jessica’s accusatory tone or the barely restrained aggression as they try to force eye contact. They look away. “I’ll have you know, I didn’t start shit.”</p><p>“Oh, I don’t know about that. You’re alive, aren’t you?” She meant that to be sarcastic. It comes out bitter— <i>I don’t have any right to be bitter.</i> </p><p>She wants to focus on something else. There were happy memories in reach, just moments ago, weren’t there? But Jessica’s here, and when Jessica’s here, everything is about her. Everything is about how they’ve been hurt.All their apologies are conditional, always a word in edgewise about how she was wrong <i>too</i>. Jaylen fucked up, Jaylen is a monster, and Jessica is a hero, so brave to deign to even <i>consider</i> associating with something as repulsive as her. But they’re not a hero now. They’re fallen, trying desperately to get back to where they once were, and there’s a fucked up thrill to seeing them dragged through the mud just like she was.  </p><p>That’s wrong. She knows it’s wrong. </p><p>“Fuck off,” they say, shoulders back but still not looking at her. Indignant. Childish, even. </p><p>She shouldn’t take her hurt out on them. They apologized as much as they’re ever going to, and they were only one of dozens. It doesn’t matter— they don’t owe her anything. Not after she saved them. Not after she saved the entire damn league. She’s not stupid enough to think that means her ledger’s in the green, not stupid enough to genuinely buy into such a concept in the first place, but she should’ve gotten something for it, right? All of the other Hall Stars are free — if it weren’t for that damn umpire, Sebastian would’ve been too, and that’s what matters. She doesn’t expect praise. </p><p>It’s in moments like these that she wonders how many of those beanings were the Gods and how many were her own rage. </p><p>A cold wind pushes some of Jaylen’s hair into her face, and she exhales. Some of the candles nearly flicker out, but they rise back up in moments. Her anger evaporates, and she wonders if it was ever really there in the first place. If most of the anger at her is the fear of being left behind, then what’s her anger? This resentment in her chest burns like being set alight, but beneath it, there’s something she’s only barely begun to touch, even now. Even after everything. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says, measuring each syllable. “That was uncalled for.” </p><p>“It’s fine,” Jessica replies, their own hair tussled by the wind, but they don’t move to brush it back into order. They’re still turned away, so Jaylen can’t see the tears running down their face. She can see how they fold into themself. “I know it should’ve been me.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“If someone had to die, it should’ve been me. Not Seb. Everyone knows I’m the worse Telephone.” </p><p>“I— that’s not true.“</p><p>“Yeah, sure, I’m the better player. Obviously, I’m the better player, you don’t need to say it. But people actually like him, and he likes.” They swallow, laughing a little. The sound clearly disgusts them. “He liked people. He had a life. All I’m good for is hitting balls. The Gods are the only ones that’ll ever want me now.” </p><p>“Did someone say that?”</p><p>“Did someone say that?” Jessica repeats, mockingly. Their voice is getting clearer with every word— whatever bruised ribs they’d had coming over here are being healed as they speak. They turn around, face still twisted in a bit of pain as they do so, but less than before. “Yeah, someone did. Said a lot more too, though some of it was hard to make out through the pain. And from that angle.”</p><p>“Gee, wonder what that’s like.” </p><p>“What?” They’re genuinely confused there, and the anger Jaylen doesn’t want to give the anger a voice. She doesn’t want to be bitter. She doesn’t deserve it— but since has what she deserved better? She <i>is</i> upset. </p><p>“You know. Another player deciding to kick you when you’re down because you’re alive and someone they loved isn’t.” </p><p>“Oh.” </p><p>“Oh?” </p><p>Jessica nods, just… affirming that’s what they said. They look off at the flames, and Jaylen wonders what they’re thinking about. Do they have fond memories of fire that conflict with the terror of it that’s been inescapably burned into every player? Or have they always hated it? “I’m sorry, Jaylen.” </p><p>She waits for what comes next. Some modifier, an excuse. Jessica Telephone doesn’t just apologize. They’re the hero of the story or the villain, not a person who can just make mistakes, but right now, they’re not wearing a crown or a cocky smile. They’re not dramatically broken. This wasn’t an epic battle. It was unfair and wrong and it happened. </p><p>And there’s nothing next. </p><p>They don’t ask for her forgiveness. </p><p>This isn’t the first time Jessica has said sorry to her. She remembers right after the Peanut’s death, beneath the sturdy oak tree, but it’s the first time they’re fully here, emotionally. The first time Jaylen is sure she knows why she’s scared of them— how they hurt her. Because it wasn’t the Pods. She wasn’t scared at that, not like the rest of the Shoe Thieves and then the Hall Stars were, because she knew what Jessica at her worst looked like. </p><p>And this apology doesn’t wipe that fear away. Hurt doesn’t work that way. </p><p>“I forgive you.” </p><p>“I forgive you too. For all of it.”</p><p>Nothing’s changed, with those words. The world is still wrong. Sebastian Telephone and nine others are still dead, incinerated because of balls Jaylen threw through them. The shadow of the Coin looms over the future of Blaseball. </p><p>That doesn’t mean they don’t matter.</p>
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